Will County Forest Preserve Volunteers See Local Artifacts on Museum Field Trip

On December 2, Espie Nelson, Don Nelson, Marie Wendt, Dave Wendt, Bernie O'Reilly, Phyllis Schulte and Linda Andrews traveled to Chicago's Field Museum and found themselves in a journey back in time. The volunteers of the Forest Preserve District of Will County viewed samples from the late 1800's and early 1900's that were collected in Will County by Ellsworth Jerome "E.J." Hill.

Hill was born in New York in 1833 and was a minister and American botanist. He collected specimens in the Chicago area for decades and later died here in 1917. He taught at Kankakee and Englewood high schools and spent many years searching for plants in the region.

He did, however, have some injuries that made it difficult for him to be out in the field. In the book "Of Prairie, Woods, and Water: Two Centuries of Chicago Nature Writing," author Joel Greenberg says additional medical issues appeared later in Hill's life, but his time outdoors seemed to restore him.

Greenberg is quoted saying in his book, "He left teaching in 1888 because of health problems and declining vision. For the next dozen years, over which time his health improved, he spent as much as four days a week botanizing."

Agnes Chase, a friend and colleague of Hill's, wrote about the botanist after he died and also commented on the nature of his injuries. "Before the word ecology was invented he was calling our attention to the zones of vegetation about the sloughs in the dune region of northern Indiana and pointing out to us the successive stages by which vegetation converted the sloughs into dry land."

Hill is known to have discovered the rare Kankakee mallow plant on an island in the Kankakee River. In addition to this, he also has three plants named after him: Hill's pond weed, Crataegus hilli (a type of shrub) and Hill's thistle.

Six sets of dried plant samples were viewed by the Forest Preserve group at the Field Museum all came from Lockport. There are 1,036 samples collected by Hill at the Field Museum, including some plants from Joliet, New Lenox, Lemont and the banks of Hickory Creek in Mokena.

Aside from learning about their local history, they also gained some valuable information about local wildlife. They were told that the Field Museum plans to create more habitats for monarch butterflies, and other plants and birds of Illinois said local volunteer Mark Bettin. Also discussed during the field trip were the benefits of prescribed burns and other restoration issues.